IF a picture paints a thousand words as the popular English idiom says, I am sure many serious stamp collectors will agree with me if I say a stamp will paint ten thousand words. Stamp collecting has been around for more than 150 years and is growing from strenght to strength. In Sarawak, there is a very active stamp club, the Philately Society Of Kuching, Sarawak (PSKS), comprising more than 200 members.
The members not only come from Sarawak, but also West Malaysia and overseas. Among the activities organised by the society include weekly meetings, auction of philatelic items, stamp fairs, and learning tours. In the history of Sarawak stamps, it is very interesting to trace stamps coming from different eras, starting from the white rajahs up to present day Malaysia. One very interesting era which is actually still very lacking in information is the Japanese Occupation.
Recently, the PSKS organised a World War 2 tour around Kuching to further understand the situation in Sarawak during those troubled times. Not many people are aware that there are several places around Kuching city playing a significant role during the Second World War. Mr. Chan Kee Tex, a renown Philatelist and also a famous local tour guide volunteered to take a group of PSKS members on a tour of World War 2 in Kuching. The tour started by visiting the museum in the Teacher Education Institute of Malaysia, Batu Lintang Campus.
The present day campus of Batu Lintang was used as a camp for prisoners of war during the Japanese Occupation. After the end of the Japanese Occupation, it was converted to a teachers’ training college and at present is a branch of the Teacher Education Institute of Malaysia. Under the History Unit, the Institute started a small museum in remembrance of the sacrifices of the people of Sarawak. Among the more interesting artifacts that can be seen here include equipment used by soldiers of that era and a flag post used by the Japanese army. A monument acknowledging the sacrifices can also be seen.
The visit also involved going to see the last remaining buildings from that era in the campus, that is, the barrack used by the Punjabi soldiers and an ammunition store. The second place of visit was the Japanese cemetery. It is located around 100 meters behind the Telekom office in Jalan Batu Lintang. Not many people are aware of a large stone found just outside the Telecom office with words written ‘The Japanese Cemetery’.
From there, turn left to Jalan Murut and it will lead you to the cemetery, about 100 meters away. The cemetery look very maintained with around 40 tombstones. According to Madam Kazue Sakai, the caretaker, this cemetery was started possibly at the turn of the last century, around 1902. The cemetery gate was built in 1940 and in 2016, some upgrading work was done. Most of the people buried there were young people from Shimabara and Amakusa Kyusyu area. We next proceeded to see the air raid shelter located next to Park Lane. From the road, it look like a small structure and is hardly noticeable, but you will be surprised that it is actually quite a big built up area comprising several chambers connected to each other by corridors. Each chamber has a window for ventilation. The shelters were built for the Europeans working in Kuching to take shelter during bombings by the Japanese planes. Finally we visited the Heroes’ Memorial, located in between St. Joseph’s Cathedral and Sarawak Club. There, various graves were found ranging from heroes fallen during the Japanese Occupation and Iban trackers killed in the line of duty during the Emergency.
There were also the fallen heroes of the Confrontation. The most recent graves include those of the late Temenggong Datuk Kanang anak Langkau and DSP Michael anak Padel. Coincidentally, it was All Souls day when we visited the memorial and relatives of some of the heroes buried there could be seen visiting the graves. It is very heartening to see that after so long, the descendants of the heroes have not forgotten them.
The tour concluded with the visit to the Heroes’ Memorial. We were focusing on the Japanese Occupation but along the way, we also had the opportunity to learn of events beyond that, encompassing the Emergency, Confrontation and also the Sulu Invasion. Going back to the Japanese Occupation, the Japanese landed at Miri on December 17, 1941 and occupied the whole of Sarawak within a few weeks. In the immediate months following the fall of Sarawak, there was no postal service. However, gradually limited service was restored until October 1, 1942 when the Japanese Government established a postal service. From then on up until the surrender of the Japanese, several issues of Japanese stamps together with some local stamps overprinted with words stating ‘Japanese Imperial Government’ was used.
